I have the feeling of being transported back to a village in Europe during the second World War.Houses are nothing more than piles of rubble,some have barely survived with only the chimneys left standing. The trees are charred, leaving only black arrows pointing to the sky. Wrecked cars completely burned.It's as if life has stopped, an indescribable feeling. During my visit to the town, I had the opportunity of dicussing the situation with a small group of resting firemen. Just like me, they are speechless. They have no idea what has happened. Across the street, a fireman is standing next to the remains of a house...

'I knew the guy who lived there' he cries.

I don't think you need to understand much French to get the gist of this. how very sad. (the translation is mine) so sorry for any errors.

Wow now an argument between the train operator and the fire department is emerging.

Apparently the engineer left 1 of 5 locos on to keep the brakes engaged but a fire broke out somewhere on the train and the fire department switched off the last loco :/

Well the management are blaming the train driver (I won't say engineer for fear of upsetting PHs chartered members) for failing to ensure enough handbrakes were applied on the wagons, obviously thins are done a little differently over there when it comes to apportioning blame.

Ed Burkhartd, who incidentally used to run EWS not that well, has a rather unfortunate manner, his face looks like he's always smiling and he sounds like he should be running a small town store in a 1940's Hollywood film.

It IS the other way .Air is used to blow the brakes off .But air will only stay applying the brakes for so long without being charged up .

If air is required to hold the brakes off then the problem wouldn't have arisen as described in this case.

That description provided still doesn't seem to match the way in which an HGV system works.The missing link seems to be the idea of the HGV's spring brakes in which if there's no air pressure then the brakes are applied.

This accident seems to suggest that at least in this case the freight trains in question don't use a fail safe spring brake system which is unbelievable considering the weights involved compared to an HGV and the resulting safety implications of that.

If air is required to hold the brakes off then the problem wouldn't have arisen as described in this case.

go back and read the rest of this thread !

XJ Flyer said:

That description provided still doesn't seem to match the way in which an HGV system works.

well that's easy .it isn't an HGV !

XJ Flyer said:

This accident seems to suggest that at least in this case the freight trains in question don't use a fail safe spring brake system which is unbelievable considering the weights involved compared to an HGV and the resulting safety implications of that.

they DO have a failsafe system .BUT they need air into the system to keep working !

no air = no brakes !

when the train is to be stabled for any length of time handbrakes and/or scotches should be used !

If air is required to hold the brakes off then the problem wouldn't have arisen as described in this case.

go back and read the rest of this thread !

XJ Flyer said:

That description provided still doesn't seem to match the way in which an HGV system works.

well that's easy .it isn't an HGV !

XJ Flyer said:

This accident seems to suggest that at least in this case the freight trains in question don't use a fail safe spring brake system which is unbelievable considering the weights involved compared to an HGV and the resulting safety implications of that.

they DO have a failsafe system .BUT they need air into the system to keep working !

no air = no brakes !

when the train is to be stabled for any length of time handbrakes and/or scotches should be used !

That seems clear enough to me.The idea of a 'fail safe' air brake system that doesn't use spring brakes obviously isn't as 'fail safe' as an HGV's air braking system.Which as I said is unbelievable considering the implications of that as in this case.

That seems clear enough to me.The idea of a 'fail safe' air brake system that doesn't use spring brakes obviously isn't as 'fail safe' as an HGV's air braking system.Which as I said is unbelievable considering the implications of that as in this case.

The reasoning behind it is fairly sensible (after reading about it). The failsafe is that an immediate loss of pump pressure from a breakage in the system will result in the brakes locking on without all of the air pressure being lost. That's important when you have so much air in the system.

Added to that a lot of marshaling yards in the states and Canada still use hump yards for shunting, where waggons are effectively pushed down a slope and then switched onto separate tracks before being slowed down by equipment on the ground. That would be impossible with truck type air brakes.

Once the train has screeched to a halt it really isn't that hard to wind on the handbrakes of a few of the waggons in the several hours that the residual pressure will allow. That there was no process in place to make sure there was something stopping the train when the locomotive was switched off seems to be the issue.

Looks like the layoffs have started 79 of 179 staff to receive layoff notices in Maine and Quebechttp://www.pressherald.com/news/Some-MMA-workers-i...This is the actual train which caught fire,the first third and fifth locos are General Electric C30-7 which have a bit of history regarding engine fires. The vehicle behind the first loco is a caboose(sort of brakevan) now used to house radio control gear. This allows one man to control the train from the ground during shunting.

Looks like the layoffs have started 79 of 179 staff to receive layoff notices in Maine and Quebechttp://www.pressherald.com/news/Some-MMA-workers-i...This is the actual train which caught fire,the first third and fifth locos are General Electric C30-7 which have a bit of history regarding engine fires. The vehicle behind the first loco is a caboose(sort of brakevan) now used to house radio control gear. This allows one man to control the train from the ground during shunting.

Presumably there is also a monumental insurance claim on the way so I wouldn't expect the company to survive anyway.